Happily Ever After is a Fairytale
by FullMetal Edward
Summary: Spoilers for Season 3 finale, No Rest For the Wicked, don't read if you don't want to know the ending. Takes off from that point, Sam's POV.


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall………

_Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…_……

Sam had always loved that nursery rhyme as a child, primarily because it afforded him endless opportunities to torture his older brother.

_"Why an egg, Dean?"_

_"I don't know Sam."_

"Why was it wearing clothes and how did it come alive, was it Supernatural?

"_I don't know Sam."_

_"Didn't it know that sitting on a wall was dangerous?"_

_"I don't KNOW Sam."_

_"Do you think it fell because a hunter shot it?"_

_"SAM!"_

And so it went.

The second reason Sam had loved the rhyme was that he identified with Humpty. It had often felt as though he were sitting on a wall looking outward over the rest of the world.

From his vantage point he could see all the people who had no reason to fear the dark, who had not had their lives laid out for them by other people, who were not treated as selfish for wanting a normal life, a life of their own choosing.

Sam had thought, back then, that all he had to do was go out and claim it for himself and it would be all right. He thought he could leave everything behind, had thought deep down that his family would come around eventually, had thought he could have a normal life instead of the insane one he'd spent most of his life living.

Really, he should have known better. It wasn't Sam Winchester's life that was abnormal, it was Sam Winchester.

He should have remembered the rest of the rhyme.

_Humpty Dumpty had a great fall………_

Bobby told him he could go back to school after his brother died, that he could go back to normal. Sam had laughed at him. Abnormality could never co-exist with normality, it would only corrupt. Already, his parents had died, his brother, his girlfriend, almost everyone he'd ever come in contact with, even Jo and Ellen had fallen off the face of the map after the Meg incident and it was likely they were dead as well.

They were all dead and, sometimes, Sam had the sneaking suspicion that he had died along with them.

The FBI certainly thought he was dead, it was listed in their database. A few times Sam wondered what would happen if he showed back up at Stanford after the school had no doubt been informed that Sam Winchester, wanted criminal, was dead. Even if they let him back and didn't immediately call the FBI his classes would have expired by now, he would have to start completely over.

He could never start over, not now, not after everything he'd been through. Especially not since he had a tendency to bring death and destruction everywhere he went. After all, Lilith was still after him and would eventually find him, everything always seemed to find him eventually.

He couldn't stay where he was forever.

A week after Bobby suggested he go back to school Sam woke up to find the older man had passed away quietly in his sleep.

Life was making choices for him again it would seem.

_All the king's horses and all the king's men………_

Hunting alone definitely had its perks, he supposed. No more weak spots, nothing that could hurt him. Sam found he didn't have to waste time talking for there was no one to talk to, he didn't have to worry about carrying a cell phone for there was no one who would call.

There was also no one to tell him what he could and could not do.

Without Ruby there, and wasn't it ironic that even his enemies had a tendency to die around him, it took longer for Sam to figure out what powers he had and how to harness them.

Four years to be precise. He was the same age as his brother had been when he had died and wasn't that somehow fitting?

Even after he had them, and felt he had a pretty good handle on them, he was very sparse in their use.

Sam Winchester wasn't a monster after all.

There was one thing he did use his powers for, however, and that was going after Lilith. Ruby had been right, he could wipe her off the face of the Earth with just a thought if he wanted too.

He didn't.

Instead he made her beg, plead with him, promise him anything he wanted.

He told her to bring his brother back.

Which, to his surprise, she did.

He killed her anyway.

It was strange after that. Lilith returned his brother whole in body but not in mind or spirit. Apparently, during his time in the pit, there had been many a hallucination involving Sam rescuing him and he was convinced that was what he was now in, that as soon as he started to feel even the slightest bit alive again it would all end just as suddenly as it had begun.

Sam could understand that feeling.

It wasn't as though his presence helped convince his brother. Sam, as he was now, made John Winchester look like an average, happy-go-lucky guy with a mild demon hunting hobby.

It wasn't the Sam his brother remembered or expected and it only served to enforce the belief that it wasn't real.

Sam couldn't take his brother on hunts so he would leave him at the hotel instead. Before he left, he would sit the older man on the bed, make sure he had plenty of food, water, and the remote and order him to stay where he was.

His brother always obeyed him. When Sam returned it would be to find him in the exact same spot, the food and water untouched, the television off.

He never moved.

Those were the good days.

At night was when it was the worst. That was when the sound of screams would rip through the air, so loud that they sometimes seemed one endless tone instead of actual sounds and, on more than one occasion, so terrible the police would actually show up at the door wanting to know who it was Sam was butchering.

It became hard to sleep and, once or twice, Sam found himself wondering why it was he'd wanted his brother back so much.

In addition to the sleepless nights, he provided a weakness in Sam and that was never a good thing.

Even while off on hunts Sam would find himself wondering about the motel, wondering if his brother was all right.

One day he wasn't.

It didn't take Sam very long at all to track him down, to find the ones that had taken him under the mistaken belief that it would give them control over Sam.

Sam slaughtered every last one of them and took his brother back to the hotel.

Once there he simply sat on the bed and watched the other man watch the wall.

Sam Winchester had a weakness again and it was getting in the way.

_Couldn't put Humpty together again………_

Sam used his powers twice more and twice only.

He never used them when he hunted, to him it was an unfair advantage not to mention it made him no better than the things he hunted.

Also, he found the less he used them the less likely he was to have other hunters coming after him.

So he hunted alone and he hunted using the training his father and brother had taught him.

It wasn't perfect, but it was enough.

He didn't hunt in the summers anymore though. During that time he would travel to a small place high in the mountains and he would stay there. He stayed away from it during most of the year, except for phone calls of course, but he found more and more his thoughts turning to that place when he was away.

It had been so long since he'd had anything to look forward to, it was an odd feeling.

His brother and father would probably be upset with him about using his powers to rob a couple banks to get the money to build the place and staff it but he didn't really care.

Sam had chosen the most beautiful place he could think of and also the most secluded. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to ever come that way of their own accord, the only way to even reach it was by helicopter and it was so well hidden that the only way to find it was to already know it was there.

Inside the place it was white and clean, crisp lines and large windows that let in light no matter where you were. The staff all likewise wore white, were well trained and paid well enough to practice quiet and gentleness. They all moved slowly and carefully as if they had all the time in the world, which they did, and Sam paid them extra to compensate for the fact that they were no longer allowed to leave once they arrived.

The staff only had two duties in that place.

The first was simple care and upkeep, and dealing with the supplies that Sam regularly had sent up by helicopter.

Their second duty was to take care of the one resident that lived there.

It was that resident that kept Sam coming back year after year. He had long grown used to living his life in darkness and the summers really only served to reinforce how dark his life really was.

But at least it didn't have to be that way for everyone.

When Sam was there he would spend his days outside, next to the chaise lounge that his brother could almost always be found on. It was an odd thing, since his return, his brother was almost always freezing as though the fires in the pit had been such that it had made the sun seem an ice cube in comparison. He therefore spent almost all of his time outdoors or in the spa with the water heated to what should have been a truly uncomfortable temperature.

On the good days, and they were few, he might actually talk to Sam. It was never about what Sam was doing when he was gone or what had happened in the pit but at least it was talking. During those times, Sam would stop whatever research or weapons cleaning he had been doing and talk back to him.

Sometimes, Sam could almost pretend things were back to the way they had used to be.

Sometimes.

Other times he would see the haunted look in his brother's eyes and the darkness in his own and know that things would never be what they had once been.

He really should have paid attention to the rest of that rhyme.

Humpty Dumpty's ending was sad.


End file.
